Niall's dashboard

I'm not sure why Alex Eckelberry's response has been removed but it made reference to the 'the simple, unvarnished truth'. So, in the same light let me present one:
Cost of VIPRE to a US customer when bought via the Sunbelt website in November 2008 was $29.95
Cost of VIPRE to a UK customer when bought via the Sunbelt website in November 2008 was $29.95
Cost of VIPRE to a US customer if bought via the Sunbelt website on 16 March 2008 is still $29.95
Cost of VIPRE to a UK customer if bought via the Sunbelt website on 16 March 2008 is now £29.95
Convert the that figure to US Dollars = $40.43 (@1.35)
Remove the 15%UK VAT to make it like for like = $35.16
So, Sunbelt is now taking an extra $5 from the transaction.
Maybe i should have originally used the title 'Price of VIPRE increased by 18% in UK' but the principle is the same, ie UK customers (and presumably others in the EU) arepaying a lot more than the US customer for the same piece of software.

Please do not treat me like an idiot. I am quite aware that VAT has to be paid on imported goods and I do not need to be referred to the UK Revenue & Customs website.

UK VAT is 15% so the quoted price on the website of $29.95 with UK VAT = $34.44.

If I convert that into GB Pounds at 1.35 (even though the official rate is 1.39) that comes to £25.51. This compares to £29.95 - an increase of over 17% ( it would be 21% if I had used 1.39).

The exchange rate is not 1.2 and whether it falls to 1.2 or goes back up to 1.90 is pure speculation.

Also, I do not believe that you are selling to the resellers at the same price that you are quoting on your website. It says that you provide discounts to resellers in the 'Partners' section of your website. So the UK resellers will still be making a proft at £25.5.

However, this is not about UK resellers, this is about Sunbelt trying to make an additiona profit out of it's non US customer base.

At the end of the day you have made it clear that it doesn't really matter what you or I think. Sunbelt have made their decision and nothing I say here is going to affect that. I just wish you wouldn't keep coming up with excused to try to defend it.

Why not just have the decency to admit that you are making more out of selling your software to non US customers?

I still don't get it. If I go to your website to try to buy Vipre, it shows the price as $29 until I go to the online store when your geolocation software kicks in & converts the figure to £29. I'm afraid that I can't accept that you sell to the retailers at the same price as you sell to the general public either, trade prices are always going to be lower. In any event, why should a download from the US web site cost the same as buying a boxed copy in the UK? Even amazon.co.uk are selling it for £27.
It seems to me that the answer is simple; if users want to buy from the US in Dollars then let them. If they want to buy locally in UK Pounds then they can do that as well.

Sorry but that doesn't make sense to me. It is the same software coming from the same place as before. There is nothing 'British' about it so why charge GB Pounds instead of US Dollars?

What has changed is that you have now introduced a system that identifies where a user is located and charge them more if they are outside the US.

Also, the figure I originally used, allowed for VAT (15% in UK). If I hadn't adjusted it for VAT then the difference would be closer to 40%

However, if what you say is true then allow us to buy in US Dollars direct from your site like were up until the end of last year.

Your price of £29 now compares very badly with the likes of Kaspersky & Avira & even Norton 360 which are priced between £10 & £20. Don't be surprised if come renewal time, your European user base (such as it is) abandons VIPRE.

I have had the new version installed for a couple of days now. I can confirm that my laptop is no longer waking up from hibernation to do updates. What I'm not sure about is whether the software is then doing an update automatically when I power it up myself. I would expect this to happen if a scheduled update has been missed. Overall I would say I am happy with the software so far.
My bigger concern is how anyone at Sunbelt could have thought it was a good idea to wake up a sleeping/hibernating/standby'd computer without returning it to that state after it had finished. My secondary concern about all this is how long it has taken for them to sort it out.
Also, the Help file says that 'When VIPRE checks for updates, it looks for both threat definitions and software, if available'. If that is the case, why didn't it update itself with the new version of VIPRE? I had to download & reinstall it manually?
Finally, it would have been nice if someone at Sunbelt had apologised for all the trouble this has caused. It seems their attitude to bugs is much the same as Microsoft's.

So, the fix that was due in September and then delayed until October will now be delayed again until at least November. My trial 15day will have expired before then. When it does expire, if the fix hasn't arrived, I'll be going elsewhere. This is a totally unacceptable attitude to bugs by a software vendor and I for one am not going to tolerate it. As I said previously, it is a great shame as I was quite happy otherwise.

I downloaded Vipre a couple of days ago & immediately started getting the problem with a Compaq Evo N410C. So it looks like they haven't issued the update. I seem to be in a more fortunate position in that I am in the trial period so I haven't paid for something I won't be able to use. A shame really because I quite like the software especially the low resource usage. NOD32 here I come I suppose